1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a system and method for remotely adjusting acoustic and visual parameters for home theatre systems including a surround sound audio system and or a visual display device. Particularly, this invention relates to a system and method of properly setting up and aligning sound fields for accurate reproduction of digital multi channel surround sound encoded audio and properly setting up visual parameters in a display device.
2. General Background and State of the Art
Some features of adjusting acoustic parameters are taught in the Plunkett Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,478) which is hereby incorporated by reference into this application. However, in recent years, film sound, television audio, and music playback formats have changed to incorporate the popularity of surround sound for improved tonality and accurate spatial reconstruction of sound. In particular, digital multi-channel surround sound technology has fostered an approach to achieve unparalleled fidelity in sound reproduction. One step in achieving that task, however, is properly setting up a sound system for optimal performance. An improperly set-up surround sound system can result in noticeably inferior sound quality and/or inaccurate reproduction of the sound the original artist or director intended. A variety of parameters, including, speaker location, listener location, phase delay, speaker level, equalization, and bass management, all play an important part in the surround sound set up and subsequent audio performance. Existing audio systems allow the user to set these parameters manually, either on a hand held remote control, or on the main surround sound unit. Parameter adjustment for multi-channel surround sound, however, is becoming increasingly complex and difficult, especially with digital multi channel audio.
Televisions, projectors, and other display devices used in home theatre systems have come a long way in recent years in regard to visual quality. However, to achieve this quality, or to achieve an intended visual reproduction, it is usually necessary that various visual parameters in the display be set, for a particular viewing environment such as a dark room. These parameters may include brightness, tint, color, white level, and contrast. Existing display devices allow the user to manually adjust these parameters, however, this can be burdensome and many viewers are not properly trained for making these settings.
Therefore, a need still exists for an apparatus and method capable of easily and completely setting a complex set of audio and visual parameters in a home theatre system, including a multichannel surround sound audio system and/or a display system.